Pensana Continues to Boost Rare Earth Projects

London-listed Pensana, which has made considerable progress on its rare earth project in the past six months, is looking to establish a stand-alone and sustainable magnetic metal rare-earth production facility in Saltend, UK, to meet the needs of the electric vehicle and offshore wind industries.

Paul Atherley, the company's chairman, said, "Both the Saltend project and the Longonjo rare-earth project in Angola are in the front-end engineering design (FEED) phase, and financing and offtake discussions are progressing well."

During the transition period, geotechnical drilling and trenching commenced at the Saltend and Longonjo sites ahead of major construction activities. In addition, Pensana appointed Steven Sharpe, an experienced natural resources financier, as a non-executive director of the company.

The company says global supply chain constraints and inflationary pressures from Covid-19 and the recent Ukraine-Russia conflict may have affected the Saltend and Longonjo programs, but detailed optimization and value engineering processes have largely mitigated such pressures.

Specific work streams currently underway involving capital and operating cost savings include waste acid regeneration to maximize the recovery efficiency of the sulfuric acid plant, combined with waste gas from Longonjo concentrate calcination.

In addition, Pensana is piloting a more cost-effective flotation concentrate calcination process as a post-FEED supplier option, which it says will result in a much shorter lead time for fabrication and installation at Longonjo. A detailed geotechnical investigation was completed along with optimization of the civil and load-bearing structural engineering at Saltend.

Finally, opportunities for process simplification were identified in the Longonjo precipitation loop, which is being piloted. FEED at Saltend and Longonjo has been completed.

The company received invitations from major European and U.S. OEMs of electric vehicles and wind turbines to secure the supply of magnets. The company signed a Memorandum of Understanding with a major Asian trading company to secure 50% of Saltend's rare earth production.

Pensana highlighted that financing is progressing well, including potential support from the UK Government's UK Export Finance and Automotive Transformation Fund. There was also a successful £10 million institutional equity placement with UK fund manager M&G. The company also highlighted that the 5% direct investment from M&G will be followed by increasing engagement with general institutional investors in the UK and US.

Pensana Plc is a United Kingdom-based rare-earth exploration and development company. The Company’s flagship assets are the Saltend rare earth refinery project in the United Kingdom (UK) and Longonjo neodymium and praseodymium (NdPr) Project in Angola. Saltend is an independent, sustainable supplier of magnet metal oxides to a market that is dominated by China.

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